If Savile was alive today, he'd be a star witness at Leveson - given the full 'Sir James' treatment and allowed to trash the Press

Scotland Yard is cranking up an investigation into the Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal. Why? Presumably the Met’s hard-man Commissioner Bernard Hyphen-Howe and his Hack Squad heavy mob have temporarily run out of journalists to arrest.

But what’s the point? Savile’s dead. Where, exactly, is this operation going?

Let me put on record from the off that I believe without question all those who say they were raped or molested by Savile. These poor girls were cruelly betrayed by the BBC, the police and the adults they trusted to protect them.

Accused: Savile's victims have been cruelly betrayed by the BBC, but it's too late to bring him to justice

The problem is: it’s too late to bring him to justice, unless the Yard plans to dig him up, dust him off and put his corpse on trial. Given the insatiable modern appetite for posthumous vengeance, that can never be ruled out. A skilled embalmer could probably have Savile looking reasonably presentable in a few hours.

They could shove a cigar in his mouth, dress him up in one of his old gold lamé shell-suits and prop him up in the dock at the Old Bailey, like Albert RN, while the charges are read and the evidence is presented. He could always be cross-examined by ouija board.

‘M’lud, I appear for the prosecution. M’learned friend, Mystic Meg QC, appears for the defence.’ Failing that, they could use a cardboard cut-out, like those life-size models of coppers they position strategically in shopping precincts to get stolen by kids having a giggle.

If the Old Bill are going to disinter Savile, they will have to move quickly. The self-appointed ‘peed-io-file’ vigilantes have already defaced his characteristically tasteless memorial. How long before the lynch mob digs up the coffin and parades his remains through the streets of Scarborough before throwing what’s left of him on a bonfire?

None of this is to make light of the allegations. For four decades, the BBC conspired in a cynical, calculated cover-up. Even after Savile died, Newsnight was prevented from telling the victims’ stories. There was a Cosa Nostra code of omerta when it came to claims Savile had assaulted young girls on BBC premises.

Cover up: When it came to Savile, the BBC was determined to protect its own brand

If similar allegations had been made against a prominent Catholic priest or, even better, a well-known Tory MP, Panorama would have been put on a war footing and the BBC News operation would not have rested until the culprit had been exposed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But when it came to Savile, the BBC was determined to protect its own brand — not just one of its highest-paid and most celebrated presenters. Despite justifiable concerns that Savile was using his position on Top Of The Pops and Radio 1 to snare his victims, the Corporation did nothing.Worse, he was encouraged to extend his access to — and evil avuncular influence over — impressionable children through TV shows such as Jim’ll Fix It and Clunk Click. During this period, it is alleged, he regularly abused young girls in his BBC dressing room, his caravan and a girls’ school and children’s home he visited as part of his charity work.

Ah, yes, his ‘charidee’ work. Every high-profile nonce’s get-out-of-jail card. Even when some of the whispers were put to him, Savile insisted that if any hint of scandal was to be made public it would damage the assorted good causes for which he worked so tirelessly, including the Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Think of all the poor kiddies who would suffer when the donations dried up.

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Hand-wringing Esther Rantzen, founder of Childline, admits she was aware of the rumours but says Savile was ‘A-list’ and therefore ‘untouchable’. She said no ‘minion’ who complained about Savile would be believed. Fair enough.

But hang on a minute. Rantzen was no ‘minion’. She was the most powerful woman at the BBC in the Seventies and Eighties and, futhermore, was married to progamme-maker Desmond Wilcox, one of the Beeb’s biggest hitters.

So why, given her influence and well-known campaigning on behalf of abused children, didn’t she demand that her bosses at least look into the allegations?

She could have mounted her own That’s Life investigation into Savile, complete with an amusing selection of anatomically-shaped vegetables. Why didn’t she? She was never shy when it came to accusing ordinary mortals on council estates of child abuse.

Belatedly, the BBC has announced there will be an investigation, although it had earlier claimed that it had examined its files and found no evidence to substantiate any wrongdoing. The Corporation will ‘co-operate fully’ with Scotland Yard’s inquiries.

But I repeat: what is the investigation supposed to achieve? There has to be the suspicion that both the BBC and the police have only agreed to hold an inquiry to hide their own embarrassment — just as Call Me Dave set up the Leveson Inquiry into the Press to divert attention away from his own intimate relations with News International.

Certainly the police have questions to answer. A number of forces, from West Yorkshire to Surrey and Jersey, have known about these allegations for years. Surrey interviewed Savile under caution in 2007, but prosecutors stopped the case because of lack of evidence.West Yorkshire officers are believed to have been looking into allegations against Savile which date back to the Seventies.

But where do they go from here? Is the BBC going to be expected to turn over every email and internal memo from the past 40 years in an attempt to discover who knew what, when, and yet failed to stop it?

Call me Dave: Cameron set up the Leveson Inquiry into the Press to divert attention away from his own intimate relations with News International

Is the Yard about to start mounting dawn raids on the homes of BBC executives suspected of turning a blind eye to Savile’s crimes and then charge them with conspiracy to commit child abuse?

Like Leveson, any inquiry into Jimmy Savile will be reduced to picking over the bones of a corpse. Savile, like the News of the World, is dead and buried.

At this point, you may be wondering where was the Press when Savile was raping children? Why didn’t Fleet Street expose him? It’s a legitimate question.

It is true the rumours about him being a serial kiddie-fiddler were widespread, just as they were about another novelty northerner, Cyril Smith, the ten-ton Liberal MP for Rochdale. Yet both Savile and Smith were ‘national treasures’ and — Esther Rantzen is right in this respect — therefore enjoyed semi-protected status. Both were knighted by the Queen.

Proving child abuse against either would have been fraught with difficulty, especially given Britain’s draconian libel laws.

Taking a stand: ITV should be congratulated for broadcasting the victims' stories which the BBC seemed determined to suppress

Some newspapers did try to stand up the allegations, without success. But they had to tread carefully.

How far was Fleet Street supposed to go? What if it heard that Savile had been leaving voice or text messages on a 14-year-old girl’s mobile phone, had such a thing existed back then?

What if a photographer dressed as a BBC commissionaire had burst into Savile’s dressing room hoping to catch him molesting a schoolgirl?What if a newspaper had camped out in his front garden, staked out his caravan, or shouted through his letter box. What if a reporter — shock horror — had been caught buying a drink for one of the investigating officers?

And then imagine the evidence had fallen short of proof positive.

If Jimmy Savile was alive today, he’d have been a star witness at Leveson, given the full ‘Sir James’ treatment by his lordship and allowed to trash the Press without fear of contradiction or cross-examination.

Dear friends: Prince Charles led the tributes for the late Jimmy Savile after he died in October last year

‘Now then, now then, m’lud. As it ’appens, I do a lot of work for charidee, yet I’ve been ’ounded by the jackals of Fleet Street. Me privacy has been invaded. It shouldn’t be legal.’

‘We are much obliged to you, Sir James.’

ITV should be congratulated for broadcasting the victims’ stories which the BBC seemed determined to suppress. These women have been grievously wronged. We believe them. It is natural they want someone to pay for their years of pain.

But no useful purpose will be served mounting an expensive police investigation into how Savile was allowed to get away with it for so long.Savile’s victims, however, do deserve a fulsome apology and a slice of his £7.8 million estate. But no more raking over the past. They have suffered enough.

Who better to fix it for them than one of the great and good who was taken in by him for so long — Savile’s dear friend Prince Charles, who led the tributes when he died.

How’s about that, then, guys and gals?

Isn’t that Gunter the Grunter?

If you ever doubted that Labour is going back to the future, take a look at Ed Balls. As Quentin Letts noted this week, with his severe new haircut, wide collar and treble chin, Balls is a real throwback to the 1950s. Not to mention his unreconstructed, redistributionist tendencies. He’s the reincarnation of former railway union bruiser and Minister of Labour under Harold Wilson, Ray Gunter — aka Gunter the Grunter. Without the charm.